


and the universe said

by andthentheybow



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Karl Jacobs-centric, M/M, Multi, Relationship Study, Time Travel, fiancé twt come get y'all's juice, getting married, no beta we die like stupid block men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-16 02:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29446569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthentheybow/pseuds/andthentheybow
Summary: does it know that we love it? that the universe is kind?a million years ago, karl made a promise to the universe. today, he makes another, this time to sapnap and quackity. it’s a hundred times more important than the last. the universe understands. the universe will not see them end.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs & Sapnap, Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs, Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs/Sapnap, Alexis | Quackity/Sapnap, Karl Jacobs/Sapnap
Comments: 71
Kudos: 415





	and the universe said

**Author's Note:**

> don't be creepy about content creators, these are my interpretations of their personas, if they're uncomfortable this will be deleted, etc etc
> 
> speedrunning valentine's day fic pog!!! this was heavily based around the minecraft end poem if you couldn't tell

**11\. and the universe said i love you**

  
  


It is difficult to talk to the universe. It is more difficult to get the universe to talk back.

Karl knows that when a dragon is killed, the universe speaks. The same words, every time. Dream won’t let them kill the dragon, maybe because Dream is the dragon, so there’s no way Karl will be able to talk to it through the End.

He finds another way.

He stands on the top of the Eiffel Tower and he says  _ let me save them _ and the universe doesn’t respond. He stands on the edge of the ruins of L’Manberg after Wilbur blows it up and says  _ let me help them _ and the universe doesn’t respond. He stands inside the abandoned ravine of Pogtopia and says  _ let me fix this _ and the universe doesn’t respond.

He sits in a clearing in the middle of the woods miles from anything else, untouched by their wars, and he says  _ please. _ And this time the universe responds.

<Please, what, persistent one?>

_ Please let me save them, _ he begs.  _ Let me help them. Let me fix this. _

<<How?>>

_ I don’t know. I was hoping you could tell me. _

<To tell you how to live is to prevent you from living.>

_ Let me go back, then, _ he tries.  _ Let me go back and make it right. _

<<Let you slide along the lines of code? Let you travel through time?>>

_ Yes. _

He seals his fate.

<Then go. As long as you swear to change it only for the better.>

_ I swear. _

He would swear even if the universe weren’t asking it of him. He will do anything, anything, to try and make things right.

<<Young one. Maybe it already is right.>>

_ I would do anything to stop their pain. Even sacrifice myself. _

The universe hums. He can feel it in his bones, his lungs, sliding around every breath, the universe’s song fills his blood and his mind and his eyesight goes white for just a moment, and then he feels himself Change. He feels himself become something Other.

He has made a promise to the universe, now. There’s no going back.

  
  
**10\. and the universe said you have played the game well**

  
  


Sapnap comes home from visiting Dream in the prison with a stoic face, and Karl automatically knows that it means he’s upset but he doesn’t want to bother them. Karl is sitting at their kitchen table, scribbling hastily in one of his diaries. Quackity is bustling around the kitchen behind him, singing under his breath. When Karl hears the door open and close, sees the look on Sapnap’s face, he hurries into the kitchen to place a hand on Quackity’s hip.

“He’s upset,” Karl mutters, and Quackity instantly puts down what he’s doing and goes to their living room. Sapnap is sitting on the couch, head in his hands.

“What happened?” Quackity asks, never one to beat around the bush. Karl settles down on the couch next to Sapnap and pulls him into his arms. Quackity sits on Sapnap’s other side and wraps his wings around all three of them.

“Fucking-” Sapnap starts, and then he stops, and he buries his face into Karl’s chest. Karl exchanges a look with Quackity over his head.

And Sapnap tells them everything, every word (or lack of words) exchanged between the two of them, about the clock and the conditions and the message to Ranboo.

“Everything’s getting fucked up,” Sapnap mutters.

And Karl, who knows how it ends, who knows where they end up ( _ Mizu Mizu Mizu remember Mizu _ plays like a melody in his brain), bites his lip. And the Lost City’s song rings in his ears and he knows he has to make this right. He just doesn’t know how.

He knows how to fix this situation, though, temporarily. He leans down and presses his forehead against Sapnap’s shoulder and murmurs, “Let’s get married.”

Quackity lets out a dry chuckle. Karl can practically feel Sapnap’s smirk.

“We’re already getting married,” he reminds them both.

“No, Karl’s right,” Quackity says. “Right now. Let’s get married. Officially.”

“Okay,” Sapnap says, lifting his head. His eyes are red, but they’re dry. He’s grinning. “Bet.”

They call Eret to officiate the ceremony and George to be their witness. And Karl makes a promise more important than anything, more important than his promise to even the universe. He makes a promise to the two great loves of his life, and he swears that he’ll love them forever. In sickness and in health. Till death do they part.

He adds  _ past present and future _ to his vows. Quackity and Sapnap find it sweet. Only Karl knows the truth.

  
**9\. and the universe said everything you need is within you**

  
  


Karl meets Sapnap on a warm day. It’s the end of summer when he joins Dream’s world to a loud welcome, and the future seems bright. He helps with building and expanding and there is hope for them. Over time, he gets closer and closer to Sapnap, until one day something in their relationship shifts, just like that. They barely wait before they get engaged, and they build a chapel and their Eiffel Tower, and Karl is so, so helplessly in love.

Karl meets Quackity on a chilly day. The elections have just happened and Quackity is the vice president and Karl isn’t sure how to feel about everything that went down. But he trusts Quackity, for some inexplicable reason. And just like with Sapnap, one day something just shifts. He and Sapnap drag Quackity into their little fold, and for a while, everything seems perfect.

Nothing is ever perfect. There’s war, and violence, and the goddamn egg trying to possess his future husband. Karl manages to stop it before it gets too far, and that night he and Sapnap wrap their arms around Quackity and murmur that it’s alright now, he’s safe.

Nothing is ever safe. They’re all traumatized. Sapnap can’t stop thinking about being used as a pawn by Dream and Quackity can’t stop thinking about being used as a pawn by Schlatt and Karl can’t stop thinking about willingly becoming a tool to be used and loved by the universe. The only difference is that he can hold Sapnap and Quackity and listen to them when they’re upset, but they can’t do the same for him.

  
  
**8\. and the universe said you are stronger than you know**

  
  


Karl’s universe, over time, turns into two people. He sacrifices a life to get their country the recognition it deserves, and he knows he would do it again and again, until he was out of lives, he would do anything for them.

And they would do anything for him. So why he doesn’t tell them exactly where he goes for days at a time is beyond him. It would be so easy, to confess everything, and yet-

and yet-

he never does.

Maybe he’s afraid. Maybe he’s more like terrified. He knows they love him, but that doesn’t change anything. He doesn’t tell them.

It’s Sapnap that he falls in love with first, Sapnap who he gets engaged to first, Sapnap who twirls him around under the stars while they’re standing on the top of the Eiffel Tower and intertwines their fingers and presses their lips together, Sapnap who nearly goes to war for him, Sapnap who he loves more than anything. Except maybe Quackity.

He falls in love with Quackity second, under Schlatt’s rule. He’s there to comfort him when things with the president get rough, and even though they fight on opposing sides, in the end it’s always the two of them together. Sapnap falls in love with Quackity, too, and it only takes a discussion or two before they’re proposing to him as well. Quackity, who tells him what it feels like to fly, Quackity whose feathers he learns to preen carefully after Schlatt’s death, Quackity who doesn’t ask where he’s been but wraps him in his arms anyways, Quackity who he loves more than anything. Except maybe Sapnap.

He loves them, and he could never deny it. He wouldn’t want to deny it.

Which is why he’s so afraid of hurting them.

  
  
**7\. and the universe said you are the daylight**

  
  


In the good moments, he can remember everything. He can remember the town that went mad and beach days and lost cities and masquerades and everything in between. He can remember the missions where he talked to people who bore eerie similarities to the ones he knows from his true time period. He can remember the missions where he just watched from the shadows. He can remember the missions where he died, over and over and over again, trying to figure out how to make things right.

The only time period where the three life rule applies to him is the one he comes from. On his missions, he dies over, and over, and over again. And it’s a little bit traumatic, sure, but when he comes home and wakes up in bed pressed between Sapnap and Quackity, everything feels alright.

In the good moments, he remembers. He wakes up screaming and Quackity cups his face in his hands and Sapnap rubs reassuring circles onto his back and he  _ remembers. _ He feels like the good moments shouldn’t be when he remembers, when he has nightmares of drowning and burning and being stabbed and all kinds of deaths, but they are. Because at least then he knows who he is, and he knows who Sapnap and Quackity are, and everything feels like someday, it could be okay.

  
  
**6\. and the universe said you are the night**

  
  


In the bad moments, he can remember nothing. He wakes up and he doesn’t know his own name and there are two strange men in bed next to him, and it all comes back to him after a few hours, sure, but in those few hours there’s plenty of time for him to scare these two men that he feels drawn to with how he’s acting.

In the bad moments, he accidentally calls Sapnap ‘James,’ even though he doesn’t know anyone named James, and when he tells Sapnap this the other man just laughs, like Karl’s said something endearing. The third time it happens Karl makes something up about a childhood friend from a different world.

Different world, different time period, same difference.

In the bad moments he goes through diary after diary hidden in the in-between and tries desperately to remember. In the bad moments he comes home from his travels and Sapnap and Quackity demand to know where he’s been because they were worried sick and he tells them he doesn’t remember, and he’s telling them the truth.

He hates the bad moments. The universe promises it’ll go away some day.

The universe has lied before.

  
  
**5\. and the universe said the darkness you fight is within you**

  
  


It’s technically their wedding night and they’re getting ready for bed. Sapnap has a toothbrush dangling out of his mouth and Quackity is laying on the bed, stretching his wings out, and Karl is standing in one corner of the room clutching a diary to his chest.

It’s  _ his _ diary. The most important one. The one he carries with him at all times. It’s the one that has everything important written down about Sapnap and Quackity, his husbands, and every fact about them is important. He clutches it tighter and then sets it down and he opens his mouth, then closes it.

“What’s up, babe?” Sapnap asks around a mouthful of toothpaste. Quackity throws a pillow at him and calls him disgusting.

“Seriously, though,” Quackity says, turning back. “What’s wrong? Don’t say nothing. We know when you’re lying.”

It’s true. They do know. There’s no getting around this now.

“I need to tell you guys something,” he says. “And you have to promise not to laugh, or to hate me, or to- to- to not believe me, okay, because I swear I’m telling the truth. It’s about where I keep disappearing off to.”

Sapnap sets the toothbrush down and rinses out his mouth. Quackity sits up and folds his wings back. They both watch Karl expectantly.

And he tells them.

He tells them everything.

  
  
**4\. and the universe said the light you seek is within you**

  
  


And when it’s over, they’re both staring at him, mouths dropped. They’re both sitting on the bed, now, and Karl is standing at the edge of it, pacing back and forth, waiting for them to say something, anything.

And then Sapnap reaches out, trying to drag Karl over to them, and Quackity murmurs, “Oh, baby, you’ve been going through that alone?” and Karl-

breaks.

He sobs into Sapnap’s shoulder and Quackity drapes himself over Karl’s back and Karl just allows himself to be held, allows them to console him, and after a while, the tears stop flowing, and he says, “Thank you.”

“For what?” Sapnap murmurs, pressing his lips to Karl’s forehead. “We want to support you. No matter what.”

“No matter what,” Quackity echoes. “We love you.”

“I love you guys,” Karl whispers, so very quietly, but he knows they can hear him. They always hear him.

He hopes the universe hears him, too.

  
  
**3\. and the universe said you are not alone**

  
  


The universe hears him.

He lays in bed with Sapnap and Quackity and they are married, they are together, they are happy. Dream and the egg and his memories are problems for another time, are not problems for now.

His husbands both fall asleep before he does. He stares at the ceiling and pretends he can see the stars.

He falls asleep.

He dreams.

  
  
**2\. and the universe said you are not separate from every other thing**

  
  


In his dream, Karl is in a clearing in the woods untouched by war. Untouched by them. It’s the clearing he made his promise to the universe in. Everything is quiet.

Then the universe speaks.

<You do this for them.>

_ I do, _ he replies.

<<All of it is for them.>>

_ It is, _ he confirms.

He does it all for them. He’ll lose his memories for them, he’ll die for them, he’ll live for them. He’ll do it all for them, over and over and over again, and he takes that feeling of Love that he holds deep within his heart and he shoves it out at the universe, trying to make it understand, and it understands.

Oh, does it understand.

  
  
**1\. and the universe said you are the universe tasting itself, talking to itself, reading its own code**

  
  


He will do anything for them.

Because he loves them. And to him, love is a sacrifice, love is a blessing, love is every good thing and every bad thing rolled into one. He loves them with all his heart, all his soul. He loves them no matter what time period he is in, whether he can see them or not. He loves them. He loves them. He loves them.

  
  
  
  
  
**0\. and the universe said i love you because you are love**

_ And the Game was over and the Player woke up from the Dream. And the Player began a new Dream. And the Player Dreamed again, Dreamed better. And the Player was the universe. and the Player was Love. _

_ You are the Player. _

_ Wake up. _

  
  


He wakes up.

He is wrapped in the arms of his two great loves,

and it is not a dream.

  
  
  
  


**does it know that we love it? that the universe is kind?**

**Author's Note:**

> [ twitter](https://www.twitter.com/andthentheybow)
> 
> comments/kudos/etc are always appreciated!


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